Wofford's Hyman finds comfort level at the plate

Thursday

Apr 11, 2013 at 6:40 PM

Junior right fielder leads Terriers in almost every offensive category.

By TODD SHANESYtodd.shanesy@shj.com

Wofford's Josh Hyman has only three hits in his last 20 at-bats, but that's no cause for concern about one of the leading hitters in the Southern Conference.Most of those outs were line drives that found gloves. That's baseball.Hyman, a junior right fielder for the Terriers and former Woodruff High School standout, had a .409 batting average after a 7-for-11 series last week at Appalachian State followed by a 2-for-4 day against Winthrop. He's down to .370, fifth-best in the Southern Conference and 59 points better than anyone else on the Wofford team.“His numbers might have fallen off just a little, but it's not because of the way he's hitting the ball,” Wofford head coach Todd Interdonato said. “He's still crushing it.”For example, Hyman on Sunday had a rare hitless day that could be blamed on bad luck more than anything. There have been only eight of those hitless days — and only once back-to-back — in 35 games this season.“He went 0-for-5 with four hard-hit balls,” Interdonato said. “In the second inning, he hit a ball that everybody, including the left fielder, thought was going out. He had his head down. But the wind was blowing in and the center fielder had to yell that the ball was staying in the park. … After that, he lined out to left, center and right.”Hyman hopes some of those liners bounce in the outfield grass this weekend as Wofford (13-22, 4-11) hosts Furman (18-14, 6-9) and tries to climb out of the Southern Conference basement toward eighth place, the cutoff point for the league tournament, currently held by the Paladins. Games at Russell C. King Field begin at 6 p.m. today, 3 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.“Yeah, I can get some line drives to fall again,” Hyman said. “That would be nice.”Hyman leads the Terriers in nearly every offensive category, including home runs (four), triples (two), doubles (11), total bases (77), runs (31), RBIs (23), slugging percentage (.570), on-base percentage (.434) and stolen bases (15) for a team that also leads the nation in steals.“He's just a dynamic player,” Interdonato said. “The thing that is most impressive about what he is doing is that he's been so consistent. It's not like he gets hot and has some incredible weekend that carries his numbers for the next three weeks. He's getting four, five or six hits every weekend. They're not cheap, either. He's not bunting for hits. He's legitimately hitting what he is hitting.”As an indication of what was to come, Hyman went 5-for-5 and hit for the cycle (single, double, triple and home run) in the Terriers' fourth game of the season at East Tennessee State. His double to finish the historic feat happened in the sixth inning. “Most people never do that in a career. I was blessed and lucky enough to be able to do it,” Hyman said. “It was just one of those days when the ball looked big. I didn't really know what was going on until one of the guys said, ‘Hey, man, you know you're a double shy of the cycle?' I had a single that was barely off the third baseman's glove and I figured that was my chance for a double. But I got a cheap one on the next at-bat and it worked out.”Hyman hit .279 in 42 games last year, 41 starts, mostly at second base with some time at third. He also battled through a couple of injuries, taking a ball to his eye in practice and then suffering a torn ligament in his thumb, which he played with for about half the season.Now he's healthy and also more relaxed, knowing that he will be in right field and batting third in the order every game.“Last season, with a mixture of being hurt and playing different positions, I was uncomfortable in the field and I think that translated into being uncomfortable at the plate,” Hyman said. “It's nice to be in the outfield. I don't have to worry about covering bases and bad-hop ground balls. I just track the ball and catch it. For me, that's more fun.”